Mark Ling

3 hours ago, Rojo Pedro said:

Super nice.  I am curious, what keeps those blind rivets tight and in place?  A tight fit and installing them cold is my guess??

 

Yessir. The holes are drilled and I used hot rolled, so it was pretty tight to start. And then riveting cold. 

Some various fireplace tools. Two different fireplace tool sets, and then one odd custom ordered poker. 1/2” square, about 3.5ft long, two pokers and a hook, it’s quite the fire tool. A few forge welds in it made it fun. The fireplace tool sets are all done without welding, the bases are 1-3/8” plate, so they weight plenty to keep from tipping over. The upright part to the stand is blind riveted into the base. 

Here’s some photos from my demo at quadstate, of mine and Jonathan’s forging stations, and then what we did in our demo. Those tools were forged all with a striker in 6 hours. 

But as a more general update I’ve been going all over it seems. Here’s from when I was in Canada forging some 3x5” bar out of 8” round train axle, 600lb steam hammer. The bar itself was about 140lbs

Set up at a show not far from me in Conroe Texas. Cold and wet today, knew when I was going it probably wasn’t worth it. 

Had quite the time at quadstate. Got to meet a lot of people and mostly spent the time forging, really enjoyed it. Currently the truck is sitting not far off the ground with 5 anvils 6 leg vises, my entire forging station including forge, striking anvil, etc, much steel and wrought iron, and tools I brought for sale. I’ll have to post pictures of what all I brought back when I get home. Excited about much of it. 

23 hours ago, pnut said:

Do you do mail order sales? 

Yes sir I do, I mail most of the tools I sell

17 hours ago, Chad J. said:

Do you have any rounding hammers in the 4 pound range? 

yes sir I have 3.5lb hammers and 4.5lb hammers. Message me if you’re interested, or better you can text or call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. 

Finished getting ready for the Tannehill conference in Alabama and Quad-state in Ohio! Hope to see some of y’all there. 

More tongs, this time box jaw and v bit. 
 

workimg on finishing up some hammers and top tools as well for quadstate and the Tannehill conference next week in Alabama. 

I’ll be bringing my forging station along with tables of tools for sale and will be set up, anyone is welcome to join in if there is the opportunity. Myself and another young smith, Jonathan Pinkston,  will be set up, with two fully equipped forging stations. We’ll be there all day for every day. 

Tongs finished up last night, and had day one of a three day tool making class to teach today. Next week I’ll start on some more tongs, this time box jaw and V bit. Time to make some tooling specifically for those. 

I’ll be there. Hope to see you guys and get the chance to meet some of y’all. I’ll have my forging station and tables of tools for sale. Quite a bit of tools. 

This is where a lot of people go off when making cupping tools....whether top or bottom tools. You do not use a ball or sphere to make them. You use a squished ball. Now for this tool it doesn’t matter as much since it’s just used to combat fish mouthing, but with hammers it matters. At least if you are wanting a proper and versatile hammer. You use a squished ball type radius, and you get varying fullers on your hammer face. You use a ball and you short yourself. A proper ground rounding hammer (I’m not talking in the context of farrier work) you should be able to simply tilt the hammer face to get a sharper and more aggressive fuller. So many just grind and even radius ball face, I used to, until I realized the versatility in the “squished ball” grind. 
 

I have been wanting to make a top cupping tool too. How I have been planning to do it is basically for a flatter using my flatter anvil, and then forge what would be the working end of the tool the same as you would a cupping tool. Forging the edge of the tool face with light constant blows to begin a fish mouth and then cleaning up the hallow with a ball fuller. 

A jig similar to what Welsh suggested would work fine...under a power hammer. I use a spring tool with two angled “dies” and it works great for making identical tapers

in your case though, first learn how to forge. This won’t be a difficult task after that. I prefer drawing out over the edge of the anvil, take the same amount of material each time and you’ll get a close enough identical taper as to what you are needing. 

JLP- yes, mainly for the larger tools it’s being used. All the smaller items are still done with a handhammer. I’m especially liking it for forging tool billets and resizing larger stock. 

You are more than welcome to! I could use some help forging a couple anvils I said I was going to do weeks ago but am just now getting around to....

Cool flatter JLP. Is that one you forged? Did you punch centered. This is what my billet looked like before upsetting the face. Forged from 5” of 1-1/2” round with the hole punched 1-1/2” from one end. 

The work from a couple weeks ago all polished up. 

My favorite out of this grouping would have to be what I’m calling for now at least, the “elephants foot flatter hybrid”. Inspiration was taken from the elephants foot flatter Ethan Harty makes. I think this flatter is the nicest design I have seen.

Happy Easter!!

Thanks everybody! Huge help!

Nice plant hanger. 

Forged a pair of chain making tongs out of 7/8” round, I’m sure these will find many other uses outside of forging chain. I like the way they are being forged from 7/8” I like the size of the boss compared to those forged from 3/4”. 

CTG then came over for about five hours and we forged out this 8lb sledge! All done with a striker other than the flattening and drawing out of the cheeks which was done with the power hammer. Quite pleased with the proportions of this one. It’s cool how if you have nothing to compare it to it could look as though it’s a 3lb hammer due to the proportions being on point. It’s shown next to a 4.5lb for scale. 

Hey guys, I’m wondering if any of y’all know of a book out there that has a picture collection of 17th 18th or even 19th century tools, mainly handled tools. Such as axes, hammers, hoes, tomohawks, etc. would be even better if it was a blacksmithing book showing the construction of them. 

Added some links to the chain and also a hook, and then forged a tomohawk out of 10” of 1-1/2x1/4” flat and used a rasp for the bit. 

Thank you for the help and videos, it is much appreciated!

old crew....if only....lol... this was made for my brothers fiancé, she had been bugging me about making her a hammer. Now that it seems I’m just doing charity work since the current state we are in no one wants to buy anything, figured now would be a good time to make it. My ML touchmark is there though, just difficult to see in the picture. Just got it handled. 

Some chain links, the start of a cupping tool, 1lb claw hammer, and a tomahawk drift. 

Jennifer, as you already know, love the hatchets and axe. Is there any threads on here over the forging of them?